


God Willing

by Hancock



Category: A Discovery of Witches (TV), Adow
Genre: F/M, Gallipoli - Freeform, M/M, Matthew Goode - Freeform, WW1, War, adow - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23442097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hancock/pseuds/Hancock
Summary: It's the dawn of a new era in 1915, as allied troops make their way and die along the shores of Gallipoli in an attempt to take back the peninsula. After finding out his immortal body was not as indestructible as he had come to believe, Lieutenant Matthew Clairmont's life rests in the hands of a young but wise witch. He learns that life isn't just about survival, but living in the moment and appreciating what you have... Before it's out of your reach."Those of such rank were granted some small respite from the cold clench of the mud, and for that, Matthew was grateful. If not for having somewhere relatively quiet to brood, but a place to isolate himself from the smells and texture of war that he so despised.Tomorrow would be a new day, and with it, he crept closer and closer to his final death."
Relationships: Diana Bishop/Matthew Clairmont
Kudos: 13





	God Willing

**Author's Note:**

> Like most fic-writers, I have NO idea where this is going but if I get enough interest I'll write up some more juicy goodness... ;)

Matthew vaulted over the fencing, boots kicking up the mud behind him in a spray of dirt and water.

“Get the fuck down!” He screamed, shoving a French corporal down into a small crater left behind by a shell. He himself slid downward, head hitting the edge of the indent as the mud carried his body to the bottom. Matthew and the corporal braced instinctively as another explosive went off near their hidey-hole – the vampire cursed. It was one of those rare occasions where his heart beat faster than it should and knowing he should have been used to it by now, he ignored it and did his best to maintain a steady flow of oxygen to his already waning lung capacity. There were screams up ahead and the thudding of artillery as another shell whizzed past the hole in the Earth where the vampire had taken refuge.

Matthew was no stranger to war. He had seen empires rise and fall as a result of the damn thing, watched friends and family bleed out before his eyes, in his arms, in his care and protection. But this, this was different from the suffering he had witnessed before. This was the greatest of wars he had ever had the misfortune of enduring, and, sitting there in his own haven deep within the crumbling soil, Matthew thought for a moment that he might not make it out. Maybe not this time.

The incessant groaning beside Matthew drew his thoughts back to the present – his eyes widening and nostrils flaring as the nauseatingly effluvious fumes of war attacked his sharp sense of smell. The corporal lay atop a pile of (presumably, by the smell) freshly carved corpses. He was writhing in pain, clutching at his head which had caved in slightly at the left, splintered pieces of bone jutting out from the torn and blackened flesh and it was then that Matthew’s thoughts came to an abrupt stop. Pain was nothing new to him, neither was witnessing it again and again – but this corporal, this twenty-something had no voice to cry out and make his pain known. It was loud outside the crater, but Matthew could hear the boy’s laboured breaths as the shock settled in, his insides convulsing and limbs shaking in rivulets of pain. Matthew took the handgun from his holster and pressed it against the soldier’s head in a swift procession of movements. The younger man’s eyes darted up to the vampire in horror, mouth wavering and a shaky hand trailing up Matthew’s uniform until it reached the cold metal of the gun. He didn’t want to die. Of course, he didn’t – but he was going to anyway, whether it was here, on the stretchers piled out on the beach awaiting the medical cruisers, or on the gurney. The boy shook his head again as his hand clutched the tip of the gun. Matthew didn’t realise he had been holding a breath as he let one loose, the tension seeping out of his shoulders as he lowered the gun.

It’s going to be more painful this way. He eyed the small crucifix flung around the soldier’s neck, settled in the mud behind his bloodied ear.  
The pleading in the corporal’s eyes seemed to suggest an understanding of Matthew’s predicament; if it’s my fate to die this way then that’s how God will take me. Whether the boy was right or not, Clairmont dared not tempt fate any further than his supernatural disposition often tempted him to.

Matthew nodded minutely, bracing himself against the walls of the makeshift trench as the Earth next to him exploded in an array of dirt and clumps of soil. Some of it made its way into Matthew and the corporal’s crater, signalling it was time to move on. It was said that lightning never struck the same place twice, nor did a shell hit the same place more than once, but Matthew preferred not to try his luck on the latter. He wasn’t known for being particularly lucky when it came to things previously thought impossible; immortality, blood rage, magic... However, being stuck in a world-wide epidemic of violent, gun-powered argumentation was topping the list so far.

Matthew gave one last look to the corporal and readjusted the straps of his ammunition pack across his shoulder. The Frenchman gave Matthew a little nod, fingers pressed against his sternum where he had pulled back the small golden effigy from behind his head.

So far, the campaign had been one shit-show after another. Gallipoli was the last place Matthew expected himself to be and prayed to God it would not be his final resting place either. A battle of ego and prestige dominated the generals and higher-ups while the real battle took place beneath their feet, their hands clean from the filth that was existential loss of life and soul, mindless killing in the name of a King and a hope of control over land and resources. Such was the nature of war, and this did not surprise Matthew but as he crawled out of his hole and immediately stumbled face-forward into another, he cursed the King, he cursed the generals, he cursed humanity and he cursed God for letting such an atrocity happen in the first place. It was almost as if the people running the countries didn’t have centuries of life experience to know that war was always a zero-sum game, and nobody won. Ever.

Matthew didn’t realise how much time had passed until the sound of silence seeped along the soil like the mist into the crater. He blinked once, twice, and slowly slid up to press his back against the edge of the hole. The wave had stopped for now, his ears ringing as they adjusted themselves to the strange, quaint quiet. It wouldn’t last long, as it turned out, as a cry writhed and scraped its way across the hills and bore through the pale creature’s aching head. It was somewhere below the leftmost ridgeline – someone was in excruciating pain, the screams echoing off the faces of the hills and bouncing around in the valleys below. Matthew, in his dazed state, tried to zone in on the inhumane gurgles, before realising there was no singular source of the sound. The de Clermont stood on shaky legs and as his eyes swept the mist before and afront him, he heard each individual cry as they were; young boys and men with their bodies blown in two, limbs missing, throats torn, completely still or writhing face-down in the mud. Anger blossomed deep within Matthew’s chest as he growled and clenched his fists until his fingernails left crescent moons of pearly blood upon the skin of his palms.

What happened next came as a surprise for the usually unsettled vampire, but nonetheless, something hard and sharp flew through the air at an alarming speed and lodged itself in Matthew’s side. He flung himself to the ground in preparation for a prompt shower of bullets but was instead met with unnerving silence, once again. “The bloody hell...” He reached down to his side and began to feel around for the foreign object when his fingers were met with inky blood. A crease formed in his brow as he held his glistening fingers to the moonlight, turning his hand, only to come to the conclusion that it was, in fact, his blood, and his body had started to tremble. Matthew wiped his shaky fingers and ripped his woolen vestments open to find and dislodge the item that was suddenly causing a white-hot pain to spread through his abdomen. Panic, in all its rarity, fell upon Matthew. Yes, vampires could feel pain and, yes, they could bleed and Matthew had been shot before, his body usually rejecting the bullet and the physical trauma that came with it. This pain was something else entirely, and as he stared down at his hurriedly blackening uniform, he began to shake violently as the vigorous waves of agony rippled through him. In a matter of minutes, the vampire found himself unable to move, paralysed with fear, as he bled out slowly but surely into the damp earth below.

Is this God’s will after all?

*** A day earlier ***

“Why am I not surprised to see your ugly mug again?” A tall, broad-shouldered ginger muttered, shoving some rationed biscuit into his mouth after a good soak in the beans that sat nestled in a bowl in his palm. Theo Johnstone leaned against the wall of the trench, mouth full of beans and hair tousled upward like a disgruntled cockatoo. Matthew never thought he’d be this elated to see the estranged mop of hair still in-tact and flopping about atop his comrade’s head.  
“It’s you Australians with your will to not die,” Matthew sank to the ground near Theo’s feet, snatching the beans and bringing them to his nose. He shuddered at the smell and gave them back, Theo giving him a pouty look at the sudden claim and rejection of the only hot meal he had been given all day. “I intend to one-up your stubbornness.”

“By not dying at all?” Theo queried and groaned as he squatted beside his friend. “Even Australians can die. If you try hard enough.” Eyes twinkling, the lance corporal closed them for a moment to see if he could quieten the insistent buzzing behind his eyes and within his ears. “This fucking thing,” he gestured toward his head, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. Matthew grimaced and gave Theo a reassuring squeeze on the thigh. War-time tinnitus was often a result of being near an untimely loud and shattering sound, and it caused the victim an incurable ringing and buzzing that would haunt them well into their sleep and twilight years. Theo wouldn’t recover, Matthew knew as much - but ignorance was bliss in war-time, and his comrade needn’t be told something he probably already suspected.

“When are you due for leave, Matt?” Theo queried, mouth full of beans and biscuit. “You must’ve racked up a fair few days now.”  
Clairmont sighed deeply. “Would it surprise you to know that I’m not actually aware?”  
“Yes.” The red-head nodded simply and set his empty bowl down. “It’s not like you to forget these details. I mean, even old Crawley tracks the days within an inch of his paper.”

Theo was right, it was unlike Matthew to forget such things but then again, it was war-time, and there were more important things to worry about, such as when Matthew was going to feed next... And on what. The vampire idly eyed the empty tin bowl, watching as the last bits of sauce Theo had not managed to swipe up had promptly begun to solidify in the November chill. 

“Where would you go? Back home? Do you even have a wife?” His peer’s eyebrow raised in question, eyes following a small fly that danced around his boots. Such topics were rarely discussed with his friend, and in an attempt to keep the query from sounding too intrusive, he dared not make eye contact. Matthew, in response, drew a deep breath. “No.’  
And that’s the end of the matter, Theo could almost hear him say. Fair’s fair, he supposed. Lieutenant Clairmont’s life was as much a mystery as were the motives and purpose of the current British occupation of the lower Gallipoli peninsula.  
“Well I do, and I’m ready to turn in before she apparates out of the mist and scolds me for not drying my socks! I’ll see you in the morn.”

Matthew bid Theo a restful sleep and returned to his own make-shift cot in the left section of the Officer’s trenches. Those of such rank were granted some small respite from the cold clench of the mud, and for that, Matthew was grateful. If not for having somewhere relatively quiet to brood, but a place to isolate himself from the smells and texture of war that he so despised.  
Tomorrow would be a new day, and with it, he crept closer and closer to his final death.


End file.
